Afghanistan to start talks with Taliban in months, official says

PanARMENIAN.Net - Afghanistan expects to restart peace talks with the Taliban within six months, chief executive Abdullah Abdullah said on Thursday, February 4, pinning hopes on factions within the Islamist militant group he said might be ready to give up violence, Reuters reports. Talks between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban have been on hold since efforts collapsed last year after it became known that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the movement's founder and leader, had been dead for two years, throwing the group into disarray. Abdullah said that Omar's death had left the Taliban deeply divided, making peace negotiations complicated, but there was reason to hope that talks to end 15 years of bloodshed in the South Asian country could resume.

"There might be groups among the Taliban who might be willing to talk and give up violence," Abdullah told Reuters in an interview in New Delhi, where he held talks with Indian leaders on bilateral issues.

"It should be sooner than six months," Abdullah said, when asked when he expected talks with the Taliban to begin. He said there had been some contact between Taliban factions willing to give up violence and Afghan security agencies, but he declined to give further details.

His comments came ahead of a meeting between four powers - the United States, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan - in Islamabad on Feb. 6 to lay the ground for talks that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government wants to conduct with the insurgent group.

China had a role to play in the Afghan peace process because of the challenge it faced in its Xinjiang province from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which was also fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, Abdullah said.

Equally important were Beijing's close ties with Pakistan, Abdullah added, because that could help coax the Taliban to the negotiating table.